PLUS

Isaiah 6:8 “Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, here am I; send me.”

Acts 9:3-6 “And as he journeyed, he came near Damascus: and suddenly there shined round about him a light from heaven: And he fell to the earth, and heard a voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul, why persecutes thou me? And he said, Who are thou, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest: it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks. And he trembling and astonished said, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? And the Lord said unto him, Arise, and go into the city, and it shall be told three what thou must do.”

Joshua 1:7 “Only be thou strong and very courageous, that thou mayest observe to do according to all the law, which Moses my servant commanded thee: turn not from it to the right hand or to the left, that thou mayest prosper whithersoever thou goest.”

Several Christmas’s ago, our family spent the holidays with my wife’s family in Arizona. It was a full house that included three generations and we thoroughly enjoyed our time together. As a part of that time, we played games. And in one of those games, we paired off into two teams – the guys against the gals.

My young nephew Seth was excited to join the guy’s team and wanted to be an active participant. We had the perfect task for him at the perfect time. We asked him to sneak over to the gal’s team while they were writing down an important element of their strategy, and come back and tell us what he saw.

He was on it!

Seth went over, largely ignored as a cute little guy, and dutifully sized up the situation. You could see from our vantage point that he was serious in fulfilling his task. A few minutes later, he came back to our side of the room, excited that we were waiting for him.

I asked: “Seth, what did they have written on their paper?”

He responded: “I don’t know … I can’t read.”

While he was an eager volunteer, he didn’t yet have the skillset we were looking for.

I’ll write about the difference between thrust and vector in next week’s post. But for now, I want to emphasize that we need Christians with thrust. We need eager volunteers who are ready to engage with the world around us on behalf of the Lord our God.

We have too many lackluster Christians who are idly waiting for the perfect time to serve, to minister, and to witness. In the meanwhile, we miss opportunities for influence and squander situations for impact.

PLEASE PRAY FOR AMERICAN CHRISTIANS TO BE EAGER AND BOLD VOLUNTEERS IN SERVICE TO THE LORD. We need Christians to say Send Me! We need believers to ask the Lord – what wilt thou have me to do – and then boldly follow Him into the center of His will. We need Christians to be on it!

Joshua 11:15 “As the LORD commanded Moses his servant, so did Moses command Joshua, and so did Joshua; he left nothing undone of all that the LORD commanded Moses.”

II Timothy 2:2 “And the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also.”

James 4:17 “Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin.”

Colossians 3:23-24 “And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men; Knowing that of the Lord ye shall receive the reward of the inheritance: for ye serve the Lord Christ.”

Joshua 13:1 “Now Joshua was old and stricken in years; and the LORD said unto him, Thou art old and stricken in years, and there remaineth yet very much land to be possessed.”

We are all charged with carrying on the legacy of those heroes who have gone on before us. It is part of the multigenerational pathway that is a natural part of God’s plan.

Joshua followed in the footsteps of Moses, who was following the Lord’s direct dictates. But he didn’t just follow along with moderation … he did so diligently, leaving nothing undone that had been passed on through Moses. He did so heartily and completely. He did so with zest and gusto.

We must do the same!

Why? In part because there is much to do. There remaineth yet very much land to possess and God has called us towards complete occupation. Young or old, it is time for us to press forward for the Lord.

PLEASE PRAY FOR AMERICAN CHRISTIANS TO FULLY FOLLOW GOD WHILE SEEKING TO POSSESS ALL THE LAND THAT GOD HAS CALLED US TO OCCUPY. We are to leave nothing undone.

ADMIN: I won’t be publishing a PLUS blog next weekend, but please keep praying faithfully for widespread revival in the United States of America while diligently seeking to possess all the land that God has called us to occupy!

Ephesians 6:10-13 “Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might. Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.”

Psalm 20:7 “Some trust in chariots, and some in horses: but we will remember the name of the LORD our God.”

On March 8, 1983, President Ronald Reagan delivered what has become known as The Evil Empire Speech to the National Association of Evangelicals. In it, he called the Soviet Union an evil empire. Shortly after boldly proclaiming that phrase, Reagan said the following:

“While America’s military strength is important, let me add here that I’ve always maintained that the struggle now going on for the world will never be decided by bombs or rockets, by armies or military might. The real crisis we face today is a spiritual one; at root, it is a test of moral will and faith.”

There are struggles going on all around us – social, financial, medical, political, relational, international. They are not to be ignored nor dismissed. Yet, they all have a root cause that cannot be resolved with the bombs and rockets that are in our personal or national arsenals. The root cause is spiritual as we struggle against the challenges that seem to be multiplying day-by-day.

The real crisis we face today is a spiritual one; at root, it is a test of moral will and faith. The only way we can triumph over the evil empire is to be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might.

PLEASE PRAY FOR AMERICAN CHRISTIANS TO PUT ON THE WHOLE ARMOUR OF GOD TO ARM OURSELVES FOR THE STRUGGLES OF THE DAY. This battle against the evil empire is a test of moral will and faith and we must prevail by being appropriately armed.

Romans 3:23 “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God”

Romans 5:12 “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned”

Isaiah 64:6 “But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.”

Psalm 11:3 “If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?”

Recently, Wall Street Journal columnist Barton Swaim wrote a powerful piece entitled “What the Founders Didn’t Trust.” It’s worth a full read (link below).

In stark contrast to the worldview of the enlightenment that spurred the French Revolution:

“The doctrine of original sin – and its implication that humans tend toward rank self-interest and degeneracy – animated every part of the constitutional structure the Founders erected. Arguments about the depth of their religious convictions miss the point. Even the skeptics and deists among them, of whom there were few, happily adopted Christianity’s moral outlook.”

Swaim laments that American society today is regressing into the failed worldviews of the past. Such a shift is eroding our exceptionalism, chipping away at our foundation, and spurring our polarization:

“The postreligious belief in humanity’s essential goodness, together with the loss of any understanding of sin – quaint word! – was supposed to lead to a gentler, less judgmental world. It has done the opposite. Reject the doctrine of man’s depravity if you like; the world’s abundance of depravity still demands explanation. The revolutionaries in France explained it by making clergy, nobles and monarchy the sources of everybody’s woes. The Marxists blamed the bourgeoisie and capitalists. Their descendants today, similarly bereft of any conception of fallenness, pin the world’s ills on people who hold the wrong political views.

When the authors of the Federalist Papers spoke of the ‘passions of men,’ or of men consistently failing to behave like angels, they acknowledged themselves, too, as passion-prone and defective. The old understanding of man as inherently flawed had a humbling and leveling effect, just as the rejection of it has encouraged political actors across the West to treat their opponents as subhuman spreaders of evil. To recover a saner, less embittered politics may be as simple, and as difficult, as recovering the Founding Fathers’ anthropology.”

In this important year of our nation’s birth, it is important to review the foundational elements of our society’s long term success. Our foundation rested on Biblical principle, not on human philosophy. And in order to reestablish a foundation that is truly exceptional, we need to basis it on a proper understanding of human nature.

PLEASE PRAY THAT AMERICAN CHRISTIANS WOULD EMBRACE AND ASSERT A PROPER UNDERSTANDING OF THE SINFUL NATURE OF MAN. This worldview must animate every part of our society’s structure.

ADMIN 1: Please see the Swaim’s opinion piece at:

https://www.wsj.com/opinion/what-the-founders-didnt-trust-787a9419?mod=hp_opin_pos_6

ADMIN 2: I won’t be publishing a PLUS blog next weekend, but please keep praying faithfully for widespread revival in the United States of America while humbly understanding the sinful nature of man!

Joshua 4:1-3, 6-7 “And it came to pass, when all the people were clean passed over Jordan, that the LORD spake unto Joshua, saying, Take you twelve men out of the people, out of every tribe a man, And command ye them, saying, Take you hence out of the midst of Jordan, out of the place where the priests’ feet stood firm, twelve stones, and ye shall carry them over with you, and leave them in the lodging place, where ye shall lodge this night…That this may be a sign among you, that when your children ask their fathers in time to come, saying, What mean ye by these stones?  Then ye shall answer them, That the waters of Jordan were cut off before the ark of the covenant of the LORD; when it passed over the Jordan, the waters of Jordan were cut off: and these stones shall be for a memorial unto the children of Israel for ever.”

Psalm 33:12 “Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD; and the people whom he hath chosen for his own inheritance.”

John Adams wrote the following to his wife Abigail describing his thoughts about our nation’s independence (based on the Second Continental Congress approving a resolution of independence on July 2, 1776):

“The Second Day of July 1776, will be the most memorable Epocha, in the history of America.  I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival.  It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty.  It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade with Shows, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.

You will think me transported with enthusiasm, but I am not. I am well aware of the toil, and blood, and treasure, that it will cost us to maintain this declaration, and support and defend these States. Yet, through all the gloom, I can see the rays of ravishing light and glory. I can see that the end is more than worth all the means, and that posterity will triumph in that day’s transaction, even although we should rue it, which I trust in God we shall not.”

Adams saw that the formation of our new nation was a Day of Deliverance deserving solemn devotion to the Lord our God. He also saw it as a responsibility that would cost greatly but be worth all the toil.

Posterity has indeed triumphed because of their transaction, benefiting from rays of ravishing light and glory.

As we celebrate our nation’s semiquincentennial, we should continue in solemn devotion to the Lord our God for our Day of Deliverance. Yet like our Founders, we should also embrace our real responsibility to toil for the cause of liberty and the continuation of our founding principles.

PLEASE PRAY THAT AMERICAN CHRISTIANS TODAY WOULD TAKE SERIOUSLY OUR RESPONSIBILITY TO SECURE THE BLESSINGS OF LIBERTY. For future generations, it will be worth all the toil.